


Voltron 2016 Secret Santa Submission

by Velvedere



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Nightmares, PTSD Shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 20:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8937181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: Shiro told Keith not to wake him from the nightmares. It was better if he didn't remember them.





	

This was how it always went.

Shiro slept on his stomach. At first, Keith didn’t know why. But soon came the long hours when he couldn’t sleep either. He lay curled close to Shiro in the bed that was really only meant for one and watched the dark shape of his silhouette; felt the jerks of hitched breath and barely-repressed sobs reverberate through the padding. Keith watched Shiro’s hand – the metal one – clench into the pillows so tightly sometimes he tore them.

Even if they’d gone to bed lying on their side, face to face, breath mingling as they smiled and kissed and touched each other’s hair, Shiro always pulled away at some point during the night and wound up on his stomach.

Keith realized it was to protect his vitals.

Sometimes Shiro pulled his knees to his chest. A fetal position. Curled as tight and small as he could possibly make himself to brace against the onslaught of nightmares.

It was Hell, having to watch. Having to refrain from touching him. Keith’s hands quivered with the urge to reach out. To touch. To comfort. To grab hold of his shoulders and steal Shiro away from whatever terror gripped him. To be something strong and solid and real that Shiro could hold onto. An anchor against the tide of dreams. But Shiro had told him not to.

“It’s better if I don’t remember,” Shiro said, ducking his eyes down with a weight of guilt, avoiding Keith’s. He touched one hand to the back of his neck, rubbing it in a mockery of sheepishness. The way Shiro downplayed most things pertaining to himself. “If I wake up on my own, I usually don’t remember…”

Keith honored his wishes, even if he hated it. Even if he was a light sleeper and any amount of noise or movement that close to him would wake him almost instantly. He could have left. He could have pulled a blanket and pillow onto the floor so the disturbance wouldn’t have been so bad. He could have gone back to his own quarters where he’d originally been assigned.

But he wanted to be there for Shiro. He wanted to do anything he could for him.

So he stayed, and he watched, ready to protect him from anything that came outside of Shiro’s own mind.

*****

The nightmares tended to be a lot of the same things over and over.

Not that repetition made them dull, or built up any kind of resistance to their assault. Rather, with the familiarity came a sense of dread. Apprehension. Helplessness. Inevitability.

They started small.

Quiet.

Dark.

Feelings of isolation and the sense of walking down – no, being marched – through long corridors that never ended.

His hands felt heavy. He wouldn’t be able to lift them.

Points of light in the dark – purple, red – revealed outlines of alien shapes. Gleaming eyes watching him through small spaces. There was the clank of metal against metal and the distant hum like the sound of a ship.

Beyond that: silence.

Then the quiet would explode with sudden bursts of color and noise and sensation: a deeply invasive assault he couldn’t fight.

His arms would be pinned down. On his back. He wouldn’t be able to move.

Dark shapes loomed above him, blocking out the light and murmuring in languages he didn’t understand.

He’d feel the soft give of a skull under his heel. He’d taste blood in his mouth.

Things ran from him. Smaller things. Weak things. Crying for mercy which a small part of him heeded, tears springing painfully at the edge of his eyes, but the rest of him didn’t care.

The rest of him felt nothing.

Sometimes the shattered memories and scattered sensations came together enough to form a concrete image: the lights overhead, the cloaked figures on all sides, the cold table against his back where he was stretched and bound. Every part of him exposed.

The druids chanted. One of them moved her hands through the air, weaving purple-black energies like threads.

His arm was stretched out to one side, cut deep and spread open, stripped bare of flesh down to the bone.

They didn’t numb him. He was awake for the procedure. Sendak wanted it that way.

“You can endure this,” he said, voice a soft purr close to Shiro’s ear, somehow slipping into his thoughts beneath the sound of his own screaming. Sharp clawtips pricked his skin, tipping back Shiro’s head to expose his neck. Hot breath fell on his pulse.

“This is not the worst you’ve had to bear…”

Runes and splintered energy like inverted lightning crackled along his bones. The druids settled the hard outer casing into place. Cauterized it closed against his skin with quintessence.

Shiro’s throat was raw. The pain was transcendent. He could almost see it like he was apart from himself: when they let him up from the table. The way he stood slumped forward, panting for breath. The first time he looked down, and clenched his new hand into a fist. The purple glow underlit the gleam in his eyes.

Pride crept over his features in a wide, cruel grin.

*****

Shiro jerked awake, breath held and every part of him taut and still.

There was someone close to him.

He didn’t think. He lashed out, snarling with the effort. His hand came down on a soft throat and he threw his weight to one side, sending them both toppling over the edge of…of whatever they were on and to the floor, his target pinned underneath him and his glowing arm casting the room in soft purple as he drew back to strike.

“—Shiro!”

Keith’s squawk struck him as hard as any blow. The breath left Shiro’s lungs all at once, and he froze, staring with horrified realization as he recognized those wide blue-grey eyes.

Keith took advantage of the drop in his guard, and reversed their positions, flipping Shiro onto his back with a twist of legs and arms and pinning him there, held fast.

“Shiro!” he growled, leaning in close with his hair over his face. “Are you okay?”

Shiro didn’t answer. Not for several gulps of air until his heart calmed down. Until the glow in his arm faded. He looked around the room in the dim light and recognized it as the one they shared.

“K…Keith,” he stammered, tension flooding from his body as he let himself go limp. “I’m…I’m s-sorry…I’m so sorry…!”

Keith let him up. Shiro scooted until his back touched the wall. He couldn’t get any further away. Then he drew his knees up to his chest and put his head in his hands, face buried against his knees as he caught his breath and fought back the sting of tears.

Keith knelt on the floor where he was. Watchful. Wary. Giving Shiro his space.

“I’m okay,” Keith said after a moment, his voice no more rough than normal despite the throb of bruises already forming around his throat. He rubbed them absently with one hand. “You didn’t hurt me.”

“I-I almost…I can’t believe…oh God…w-what did I…?”

Keith got up and went to him, his steps slow and careful as he approached. He knelt down just beside him and, when Shiro didn’t flinch away, reached out to put a hand on his arm.

“It was bad this time,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Shiro nodded into his knees, unable to look at him.

Keith moved in anyway and put his arms around him. He leaned in his weight, offering what comforting reassurance he could with the solidity of his presence.

Shiro broke down, his shoulders jerking with sobs as he opened his arms and pulled Keith in, holding onto him tightly. Squeezing with a fierce tenderness, but careful not to overly touch him with the prosthetic arm. It felt like an intruder: a parasite permanently attached to his side.

Already the dream was fading. Already he was forgetting.

Keith leaned over him in the dark and held him. Let himself be held. He touched his lips to the top of Shiro’s head and stroked his fingertips through his hair, combing the wiry dark on top and the tickling buzz in the back.

“It’s okay,” he repeated, over and over again, until Shiro believed him. “It’s okay…we’re okay…”

They stayed like that until dawn, when sleep found them again.


End file.
